


Trading Paper For Ink

by EffingEden



Category: Original Work
Genre: Constructive Criticism Welcome, Elliquiy's Storyteller Cafe, Gen, Racist Language, Steampunk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-06 13:00:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3135362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EffingEden/pseuds/EffingEden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Feeling lonely, the newest crewmember of the airship Banestar tries to get a little more friendly with Klaus, the only person on board who doesn't care if Nicolae is a gypsy or the long lost son of the Empress. But in exchange for some of his attention, Klaus wants the one thing Nicolae is desperate to keep to himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trading Paper For Ink

**Author's Note:**

> For The Storyteller's Cafe over on [Elliquiy](https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?action=refferals;refferedby=4147), using the elements steampunk, diary/journal and a gruff ex-soldier.

The air of the engine room was thick with the catching reek of hot metal and heavy grease. Pipes shivered and dripped condensation from above, the grating underfoot glistening in the lamplight, great brass drums quivered and whirring leather belts snickered softly. The light was low, only the lamp he held throwing illumination on the metal guts of the airship. The heat of the air and the stink made it difficult for Nicolae breath. He hitched his neck scarf over his chin, jerking it higher over his nose in a vain attempt to keep the fumes from clawing at his nostrils. The noise made it all worse; pressured hisses, clicks and clatters of valves, the high squealing protests of metal rubbing on metal, and below it all a deep thrumming that shivered up through the soles of his boots and tickled the marrow in his breastbone. 

He had been on board for three weeks now, but had avoided this place. It made his mind scream with the unnaturalness of it, his legs aching with a need to bolt. He needed, not only to get away from here, but to get to the ground. Back to the solid familiar safety, where the only metal was scrap, the gaudy harnesses of the horses, or the soft flash of silver and gold carried in the hair and ears of The Family.

He stood in the entryway, his knees locked to keep him from retreating. It wasn’t going to close up and swallow him, it was just a machine, an engine that gave The Banestar its power. It was just the beast that carried them all forwards… a different type of horse.

A very different type of horse.

He couldn’t be cowed by it. Wouldn’t be! He’d master this – he was a grown man, he could break a colt in without breaking its trust. He just had to treat it like a half feral stallion found in a ditch. Keep calm, don’t hesitate. He stepped forwards, into the nightmare of a room –

\- to be jerked violently back out, a heavy hand on his shoulder, fingers digging in under his collarbone. A sharp wave of nausea made his head swim of the slender, healing bones strained and almost parted again. His head filled with the crackle of empty air and he lost a heartbeat or two, trying to keep from losing the meal in his belly.

“Gypsy,” came a low growl of a voice. “There ain’t nothing in there for your likes.”

Nicolae lifted his head and pulled his neckerchief down, in case the threatening gore that rose in his throat came with any greater force. He swallowed and glared at the man who pinned him to the wall with one hand and held his lamp in another. The mechanic must have snatched it from him in the same instant he had pulled Nicolae off balance. 

The man, Klaus, was shorter than him by a few inches, his hair dirty blonde and freckles on his skin showing the heavy scars more clearly. His lip was twisted and the lower lid of his eye was pulled down by a thick knot that was lodged just below his right cheekbone. There was another viciously deep scar that ran over his left palm, severing the muscles and making three of his fingers all but useless. Nicolae knew there were more wounds hidden under the man’s clothing, because he moved with a limp in his left leg, but he didn’t know anything of where the damage had come from. The crew of the Banestar were as close-lipped as The Family were around strangers. 

Klaus’ blue eyes were narrowed in annoyance, though he relaxed his hold on Nicolae when he didn’t fight. “We were warned against letting you wander where Wanderers shouldn’t be. Captain won’t like to hear of it.” 

“I was – looking for you,” Nicolae rasped, swallowing again, gingerly lifting one hand to touch his healing bone. 

“Likely,” snarled the mechanic, looming nearer. He was as protective over his machine as a mare over her foal. “You got sand in your oil if you think I believe that, Gypo.”

“Nnn-no.” Nicolae shoved his aggressor and staggered away from the wall, taking a few steps back as the mechanic advanced again. He lifted his free hand and said quickly, “I wanted your skill!”

That stopped the man’s advance. “You what?”

“You’re skill, with ink. You did the design on Tyler’s arms – she said so.”

“Did she,” Klaus muttered, the words almost lost under the racket of the engine. He didn’t seem any happier, but then of all the crew it was Klaus that had never once smiled or laughed with the others in their private jokes and verbal jabs at him. That he didn’t join in the mocking made Nicolae want to connect with the scarred man, though such friendships were taboo. Two months of being alone and then three weeks of harsh words in close quarters was a strain he’d never even imagined before. 

He couldn’t talk to Klaus in the mess, not in front of the crew. And the captain’s close watch on him, the dropped hints, the lazy knowing smiles made his skin crawl.

“You have the Empress’ gold?”

The question was slurred slightly, Klaus’ damaged lip catching the constantans when he didn’t take care.

Slowly, Nicolae shook his head, his hair, caught back in a short braid, bumped his spine. “Her laws forbid it,” he said in a low, sullen voice. He wasn’t a legal member of the Empire, safe from being summoned to her armies but not under her protection, and not permitted to carry coin with her visage. He couldn’t be paid in it, and if he tried to buy something with it the trader could keep both coin and goods. What coins they did get, they melted down into bangles and other simple trinkets.

“My only gold is in these hoops,” he said, turning his head slightly to make the gold bangles in his ear glimmer. He knew it wasn’t loud enough to carry to the mechanic, but the man’s eyes dropped to his lips, reading their movement. 

The shorter man’s eyebrow lifted slowly and touched the metal, his blue eyes moving up to the ripped skin that told of the hoop’s lost fellows. “I don’t want this,” the mechanic muttered, dropping his hand quickly. “What else do you have?”

Nicolae could feel his heart bumping against his sternum like a confused bird in a trap. He licked his lip and shook his head once. “Nothing. Nothing else.”

“Gypsy,” Klaus chided, his lip hitching up in an ugly smirk. “I’ll do it. For this.” The hand that had toyed with his earring lifted again and pressed against his chest, pushing lightly to make the slim book in his breast-pocked nudge at his skin, the metal hasps clearer than the leather. 

He stepped back, too late. Much too late. How had he known…? He still tried to protect it, lifting his good shoulder nonchalantly. “It’s nothing.”

“Then you can trade it. Ain’t what you do?” 

If he said no, if he backed out of the trade now, Klaus would know the book was valuable. He wouldn’t be able to get into it, Nicolae was certain of that. Even if he was an engineer, he’d have to be a locksmith to open the book undamaged. And at the next port it would be easy to just take the book back and slip out. 

He offered the man a wry half smile and said, “I wish you joy with it.” He pulled the slender journal from his inner pocket and handed it to Klaus, not letting his hand clench or eyes linger on the brass filigree or the dusty brown leather binding. There were no words on the spine, and only an ornate letter ‘F’ on the front. Three inches wide and five inches high, only a quarter inch thick. He felt like his collarbone was being squeezed again, he wanted it back so badly.

Klaus looked it over, turning it in his hand, looking in equal parts at the book itself and at the gypsy’s reaction. “Expensive work on the lock there. Not your everyday security. There’s a vial, by the pages. An oil that will light itself or fade away the ink – or a fake, just water to keep the nosey light handed. It come with a key?”

“No,” Nicolae said honestly. 

“Thought not. Still worth a bit of ink. Not now, got some pressure build-up that needs seeing to. Tonight, if there’s not another storm keeping you in the cockpit.”

He almost tried to take the book back, and from the arrogant gloating in those blue eyes, Klaus knew he wanted to. “Tonight,” the gypsy repeated, clenching his jaw and stepping out of reach before he turned his back on the scarred man, loathing the airship and her crew more than he had in for the whole journey.

**Author's Note:**

> Concrit welcome.


End file.
